AICD submission on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Business Registries Stabilisation and Uplift) Bill 2026

On 27 May 2026, the AICD made a submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Economics’ consultation on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Business Registries Stabilisation and Uplift) Bill 2026.

On 27 May 2026, the AICD made a submission to the Senate Standing Committee on Economics’ consultation on the Treasury Laws Amendment (Business Registries Stabilisation and Uplift) Bill 2026.

Our submission was strongly supportive of the introduction of the Bill, which presents an important opportunity to improve Australia’s business registers. However, in the AICD’s view, it is critical that the legislation provide certainty to the millions of officeholders of community and business organisations that their sensitive personal information will be appropriately protected under the new arrangements.

The key points in our submission were:

• Access to information on ASIC registers: The AICD’s strong view is that the publicly accessible elements of the Register and company extracts should only include details of an individual director’s name, Director ID and an address for service, and that this should be enshrined in legislation. This will address significant privacy, security and physical safety risks and provide both certainty and clarity without undermining corporate transparency or the ability of regulators to target illegal phoenix behaviour or corporate enforcement.

• Alternative address for display on the register: ASIC, supported by the Government, took the important interim step on 2 February 2026 of removing residential addresses from purchased company extracts. To ensure these protections are maintained, any service address that is made publicly available should be the company’s registered office (and not the director’s residential address) unless the director provides ASIC with a service address in line with the process contemplated in subsection 205D(1) of the Bill. This would ensure ongoing protection and mitigate the risk that directors do not take the step of nominating a service address (recognising that approximately 3 million people are impacted, including directors of small family-owned businesses, community organisations and NFPs).

• Public interest test for access to information (proposed new section 1274AB): The AICD is concerned that the proposed disclosure power in section 1274AB of the Bill as drafted, would allow ASIC to provide and publish information not otherwise available through a company search (e.g. directors’ residential addresses) to a wide range of third parties without adequate protections. A broadly drafted discretionary public interest test lacks the clarity and certainty that is required, risks undermining protections and could lead to potentially inconsistent outcomes.  We recommend that the Bill establish conditions under which the release of sensitive information would be provided, with protections against its misuse.

• ASIC deregistration powers: The AICD has concerns regarding the breadth and proportionality of the proposed power to deregister a company where ASIC has reason to believe that information provided to it is materially misleading. If additional powers are considered necessary (despite existing relevant Corporations Act 2001 (Corporations Act) provisions), a court-based pathway as suggested by the Law Council of Australia may be more appropriate.